Paradise Lost
All You Leave Behind

24.07.2007

Singer Nick Holmes of British doom/gothic legend Paradise Lost has an image of a gloomy and non-talkative person, and those who met him on a few trips to Moscow back in 1997 and 2001 can confirm that a large part of that image is partially true. So when we did that interview, we weren’t expecting anything special, but Nick surprised us all by turning out a very nice and funny person. It’s quite miraculous that after all these years of playing dark music and being in a music business, which is, as you all know, a very tough place, Nick still manages to enjoy not only his music, but also conversations like this. Or maybe he was just very satisfied with the band’s latest album “In Requiem”, indeed a very good record that brings Paradise Lost back to the sound and style of their classic releases “Icon” (1993) and “Draconian Times” (1995)…

“In Requiem” is the 11th studio album in your career. When you just started the band, have you ever thought what your eleventh album would sound like?
No, not at all. (sighs) It’s pretty hard to imagine what you will be doing in 11 years, whether you’re in a band or whatever you’re doing. None of the guys in the band can really watch further than the next year, to be honest. We’re not gonna plan too far ahead, we don’t have a five-year plan, maybe that’s part of the reason why we’re still around. I remember choosing the name Paradise Lost when we were very much like a death metal band, and I remember thinking at the time that there might be a day when we just don’t gonna play pure death metal. Maybe I was kind of thinking ahead, but I don’t know. We just take it easy.

A lot of people view the new record as a kind of “Icon” or “Draconian Times” of the 21st century. Would you agree with this definition? Was it your intention to bring back some of the old elements, or did it happen naturally?
I think what we do always happens naturally. We’ve been together for nearly 20 years as a band, and everything we do is just a representation or a snapshot of where we are in our careers. We don’t look back at the old albums and think about a follow-up. Everything you do within the band is a learning curve of yourself as a musician. Every album we’ve done, we’ve been happy with it at the time, and there’s none of the albums that I feel dreaded about. We look ahead with every album, but there are identical elements in all albums, because the same guys are writing them. (laughs)

When you started working with Rhys Fulber as a producer, everybody expected the band to sound more electronic (Rhys is a keyboard player in EBM veterans FrontLine Assembly – ed.), but with every album you do with him, you get even heavier. Isn’t that a kind of paradox? How much does Rhys influence the music and the sound of Paradise Lost?
Rhys works a lot with keyboard-oriented music, but he’s not particularly into that kind of thing. He in love with different types of music, the electronic thing is something that he did many years ago. He loves heavy bands as well. As far as the songs go, the songs are pretty much written before Rhys hears them, and he’s more of the case of giving his opinion or rating them. If something was really bad, we would probably know it before Rhys was even involved, we hopefully know what’s bad and what’s good. (laughs) But Rhys has a very good ear and a very broad taste in music, and we have a very similar taste in music as well, so he’s always good as a third party, I think.

You’ve spent a lot of the time in the studio throughout your career, and even more time touring. What gets more tiresome and routine over the years – recording or playing live?
Recording is always good for me, because you’re gonna see how your creations come to life. I absolutely admire recording, you spend eight or nine months writing the album, and then you’re gonna see its birth, so to speak. Touring is also good for me, but sometimes if you’re spending six or seven months away from home, it can get pretty hard. But it depends – when you spend too much time at home, you just wanna go away on tour again. You can’t win, so it’s kind of a vicious circle. I think touring can get tiresome after 18 months or something, but the first few months are great.

When you have completed a song, do you already know that it’s going to be a hit or not?
No. We record everything digitally through a computer, when everything is written, so you can kind of determine which song is gonna shine through more than others maybe. But even then you still can be surprised by the outcome once all the guys start playing on the song. In the old days, it was really difficult to tell which song is gonna be better than other songs, but now you can work on the songs to the point when our demos sound better when other people’s albums. It’s nice to be able to use the technology to check your demos, it’s such a high standard, while years ago we had to use a crappy little tape machine, and it sounded rubbish.

And why did you choose “The Enemy” as the first single this time?
We didn’t choose it, Century Media chose the single. We gave up on choosing singles many years ago, because the pressure to write singles is always high, and you don’t really need it. We like to write albums, we’re not a pop band, contrary to what people might think. (laughs)

By the way, many people heard stoner rock influences in this song. Does anybody in the band listen to stoner rock?
(sighs) Stoner rock – who are we talking about now? Kyuss, I suppose?

Yeah, old Cathedral as well.
Well, I don’t know, we were probably all listening to that at some point in our lives. I used to like Kyuss very much 10 or 15 years ago, but no one’s into in particularly. We’re good friends with Cathedral, if that counts. (laughs)

What is the concept of the video for “The Enemy”? And who came up with it – the director or the band?
The director came up with the entire concept. Basically I just sent him the lyrics, and I wanted him to come up with whatever he wanted for the storyboard. If I hadn’t seen his previous work, I probably wouldn’t have particularly liked the storyboard, but I’ve seen his work, I know how it works, and he’s got a great eye for bizarre film-making, and I really like what he does. Our video is no exception, it’s kind of not related to the lyrical content, but I don’t think it really matters, to be honest. Basically we get taken to a shooting gallery, we get shot and get up again (laughs), like in a mini-film.

A lot of bands are now filming their videos in countries like Serbia or Romania, but Ukraine is a very unusual choice. Why wasn’t it possible to shoot this video in any other location?
I think it’s not unusual when you have considered the price it would cost to make that in London! (everybody laughs) I think it would amount to a hundred thousand pounds. For most bands, to film a video in England is kind of insane. (laughs)

More about videos – we were really surprised by the re-release of your very old tape “Live Death” (1989) on DVD, which happened a couple of years ago. In an interview you did in Moscow in 2001 you said you were glad that this video was no longer available…
I didn’t even know it was re-released, I kind of brushed it under the carpet, but if it’s being re-released, there’s nothing I can do about it. (laughs) I don’t mind, I don’t care, I was only kidding about that, it’s no big deal. If I sat down and watched it, that might not be very pleasant, but it’s history. That’s only me jumping about on stage, it’s not the end of the world.

And when do you plan to shoot a new DVD?
We filmed a live concert a few months ago in London, where we did a kind of best-of, covering everything we’ve done over the last seven or eight years. We did a good cross-selection of our songs, we filmed it for a live DVD, and it will hopefully come out towards the end of the year. We’re still putting it together.

But you previously said that you might perform live the entire “Draconian Times” album for that DVD…
That was actually discussed, but it became public knowledge before it was even agreed on. And it wasn’t actually agreed on in the end. (laughs) It’s kind of irrelevant now, it’s gone. I still think the music we’re making now is relevant, and as much as we appreciate how good “Draconian Times” did, it’s almost like saying, “what we’ve been doing lately is crap, we will rather play our old stuff.” I don’t really agree with that.

More about the visual side of the band – your latest photo session is very intriguing, you look like people from the late 19th century or something like that…
Yeah, that’s the idea! We went drinking in this bar in Canada, when we were recording, and there was a montage on the wall made of photos of many guys, most of whom are probably dead. I found that intriguing - every picture you’re looking on is nice, but they’re all dead. I thought, “If we look like all those dead guys, it would be kind of interesting for a photo shoot.” All the promotion shots are the same, we’ve done that ourselves – dark looking people, long hair, leather jackets. We thought we should try something different for once.

And in your opinion, how much does image matter for a band like Paradise Lost?
It means pretty much for every band. It depends on what you think about. I’m not particularly into theatrics, a lot of bands use theatrics to cover their music, especially when the music is crap. When you take this into consideration, that’s pretty important. We are totally aware of that, but to be honest, for me to wear eyeliner, I would look like a middle-age woman, it’s kind of pointless. (everybody laughs) You have to have black hair to go with eyeliner.

The cover for your previous album was designed by Seth, the guy who used to play in Greek metal band Septic Flesh. Who is responsible for the new cover? Stylistically they look quite the same…
Yeah, it’s Seth again. I didn’t realize Seth was in Septic Flesh, I thought he just did artworks, but now I’ve found out he’s in Septic Flesh, that kind of shows you how much I know. (laughs) He’s got a real style, you’re gonna tell his work from all other, which I appreciate a lot. It’s always good when you see the artwork and you can tell who’s done it, it’s real good quality.  

Every band cares a lot about the cover artwork. But did it happen to you personally that you went to a record store and bought an album just because you liked the cover?
I’ve never bought an album because of the cover, but we come from a generation of longplays, and for us the cover and the packaging was always very important when we were kids buying albums. I remember Celtic Frost albums would always seem bad, but they actually appealed because of the artwork and everything that was involved. They were so well-packaged that it made the whole thing complete. And we still think like that. I don’t think it’s half as important nowadays, we live in the age of downloading, but for us it’s still nice. We try to fit listener to the music while he’s reading the booklet or looking at the artwork, so that these pieces constitute a single entity.

Are there any Paradise Lost covers that you don’t like?
Ehm… (pause) I don’t love any of them. I like them, but I don’t love any of them. My favorite album covers are always other people’s album covers, I never freak out by my own covers. “Believe In Nothing” (2001) is kind of bizarre, but I still kind of like it in a way. I don’t think it represents the band that well, it maybe represents our brains when we did that album. I don’t know really… (laughs) It’s cool to answer this but I’m out of my head.

And are there any videos you wish you had done differently?
Videos are kind of necessary evil sometimes. You may have an idea of how you want videos to be done, but you have to put it down on the shelf all the time, because you’ve got budgets that you’ll be talking about, and it will be the end of many things you plan. Sometimes the ideas you have will be stripped down, and more often than not, metal bands end up doing a performance video, which I really don’t like, I find these videos boring. Our last video (“The Enemy”) was really good filmed, it’s pretty grim to watch, but we had a lot of fun making it. Not all the videos are completely great. At the end of the day, it’s like with our albums – everything we do, it’s where we are at when we make it. There is nothing I think is fucking awful. (laughs)

Throughout your career you worked with many record labels. How did you end up at Century Media, and how do you like it so far?
All the time we have signed with labels for two albums. We do two albums, and then if we see anything bad, we’re gonna move on. Gone are the days when you were signed for ten albums or even five albums, record contracts nowadays are a lot more short-term. Century Media offered us a good deal, we told the people at the label what we wanna do, they agreed with us, and they treat us really well. We’re really pleased with Century Media so far, it reminds us of what it was like when we used to be on Music For Nations, around “Icon” and “Draconian Times”. The guys are also old-school metal fans, which is kind of nice (laughs), on EMI they were all young, shiny and poppy.

Who owns the rights to the Paradise Lost albums originally released by Music For Nations?
I believe they’re coming back to us. (laughs) I’m not sure if we’ve got them all, but they’re coming back slowly.

The label has closed, and as far as we understand, their CDs are not very easy to get, even though they are classic…
Yeah, I know, but it’s out of my mind to deal with that kind of stuff. (laughs) In business there is a retention period of 10 years, so the really old stuff belongs to us again.

The new album will be released in a limited edition vinyl box. How big is the interest in vinyl in Great Britain nowadays?
I have absolutely no idea, but I do know that the box is really nice, I was very really impressed with it. If I was a vinyl freak, I would absolutely love it. I’ve got one upstairs, it’s really beautiful to look at. There’s definitely a market for it, and I also think that vinyl sounds much better than the CD, but unfortunately I’m into the convenience of CDs. If there wasn’t a market, I don’t think they would have made it, you know.

Let’s now recall your latest trip to Russia back in 2005. It was very weird, because you played without guitarist Gregor Mackintosh. What happened to Gregor? How was it like onstage without him?
We made commitments to do concerts, and Greg had a problem with his appendix, he needed an operation and time to recover, so he couldn’t come over and play the concerts. We had committed to do the shows, we couldn’t let people down, so we came anyway. It wasn’t much fun to play without Greg, to be honest, it doesn’t feel right when he’s not there. I don’t think we will do that again. (laughs)

Who was the guitar player that replaced Greg on those gigs?
He’s our guitar technician. He’s still our guitar tech, we sacked him after that tour, he was demoted back to sound technician again. (laughs)

How much did you rehearse with him?
Not much. He’s an amazing guitar player, he can learn the songs in two or three days. He plays in a lot of cover bands and pop bands, he’s a very talented musician, he picks things very quickly. (It may be, but we have to notice that very few of Greg’s leads and melodies sounded right in his rendition at the Moscow gig – ed.)

Paradise Lost are one of the few bands that very seldom have line-up changes. You have the same four people in the band since the very beginning, only drummers change. How do you manage to stay together for so long? Do you ever have quarrels with each others?
Yeah, it’s like “Spinal Tap” – our drummers just explode! (everybody laughs) I don’t know, maybe a part in this is that we have the same sense of humor. We came together as friends in a very honest way, we had mutual love of music, it’s a very humble way to get together. We weren’t looking for other guys to join the band, we were friends first, and then we started a band. Also we don’t live in each other’s pockets - when we’re away from touring we all live in different sides of the country, we don’t live close to each other. I don’t know – you do an album, then you start the touring cycle, and before you know it, there’s another album, and before you know it, you’ve been doing the same thing for 20 years! (laughs)

How do you choose songs for the setlist these days? Eleven albums make a huge catalog that is quite difficult to choose from…
We choose them basically on how good we feel the songs go down live. The last eight albums of all, we play many songs off them, and we know which songs the crowd generally seems to like best. We’re picking kind of best-of from each album, but you can never please everybody, there’s always speculation, “Why didn’t you play this song?” We generally try to do the songs that we feel sound best live.

Are there any chances of seeing you back in Russia some time soon?
Yeah, for sure! I keep checking websites for tour dates myself, these dates are added all the time, so I don’t even know what we will be doing, that’s what we pay our booking agent for. But hopefully, some time this year it will happen.

Paradise Lost on the Internet: http://www.paradiselost.co.uk

Special thanks to Gerrit Mohr (Century Media Records) for arranging this interview

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov, Victoria  “Ewigkeit” Bagautdinova
May 24, 2007
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